Restarting of the AppPool is a completely normal part of operation.

I doubt it will be the cause of this.

Is the failure always "Cannot connect to the DB"? Or is it variable?

I have one suggestion. Do you connect to the SqlServer by IP address? Don't! If your machine has woken up today with a new IP address then the IP address in the connection string will be wrong. That could explain the symptoms.

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Best wishes,
- Richard
Agile Development Consultant, Practitioner, and Trainer
www.dynamisys.co.uk

Can you post us your Database connection string? If you use id/password in it then please obfuscate them.

Try logging in to the database from SSMS (Sql Server Management Studio) using the same credentials as your DNN connection string. I am assuming that you are using id/password security here. I don't know if you can do that using AppPoolIdentity.

You should be able to get in.

When DNN reports a failure try it again. You may get more useful information about why.

Also in the DB, look at the view vw_EventLog. Look for where it logs the connection failure. You'll need a query like this...

SELECT top 200 [LogGUID]
,[LogTypeKey]
,[LogConfigID]
,[LogUserID]
,[LogUserName]
,[LogPortalID]
,[LogPortalName]
,[LogCreateDate]
,[LogServerName]
,[LogProperties]
,[LogNotificationPending]
,[LogEventID]
,[ExceptionHash]
,[AssemblyVersion]
,[PortalId]
,[UserId]
,[TabId]
,[RawUrl]
,[Referrer]
,[UserAgent]
,[Message]
,[StackTrace]
,[InnerMessage]
,[InnerStackTrace]
,[Source]
FROM [dbo].[vw_EventLog]
order by LogCreateDate desc

Look at all the Message/Stacktrace colums for that error for clues.

Local installs work for hundreds, probably thousands of people; including me! There *has* to be something special your environment.

---

Best wishes,
- Richard
Agile Development Consultant, Practitioner, and Trainer
www.dynamisys.co.uk

Ok. I'm immediately suspicious of the AttachDbFilename etc. I can't say that it doesn't work, only that I have never tried it.

I have a script that does my installs so I am hazy on the exact details.

I suggest you try creating an empty db in SSMS and give the AppPoolIdentity account DB Ownership rights. Then in the install screen point the DNN Installer at that DB.

---

Best wishes,
- Richard
Agile Development Consultant, Practitioner, and Trainer
www.dynamisys.co.uk